Is Checkatrade worth it for a roofer?
Roofing job values make directory membership easier to justify than in most trades, because one won re-roof can cover a year of fees. It stops working when you're mainly winning small repairs while paying for leads priced against the whole trade.
The roofing maths is different
Most articles on directories average across every trade, which hides the thing that matters here. Roofing has an unusually wide spread of job values, and the same lead fee behaves completely differently at each end of it.
| Job type | Rough value | Directory fee as a share |
|---|---|---|
| Slipped tile repair | Low hundreds | Painful. Can approach the margin. |
| Chimney or leadwork | Middling | Workable |
| Flat roof replacement | Several thousand | Comfortable |
| Full re-roof | Five figures | Trivial. One job pays for the year. |
Run your own figures
- Add twelve months of membership to twelve months of lead charges.
- List the jobs you won through it, with their values. Won, not quoted.
- Work out the split between small repairs and larger work.
- Divide total cost by jobs won. That's your true cost per customer.
- Compare it against the average value of the jobs it actually brought, not the jobs you wish it brought.
What most roofers get wrong
Judging it on volume during a storm. A directory will look extremely good in the fortnight after high winds, because everyone in the county is enquiring at once. That's the weather working, not the platform, and the same enquiries would have found a well-ranked roofer too.
The second is cancelling before there's a replacement. Search work compounds over months, and roofing has the added problem that stopping at the wrong point in the year can leave you exposed for a whole season. Reduce it as your own enquiries grow, rather than switching it off.
Related questions
Do directories send good roofing leads?
They send enquiries. Whether they're good depends entirely on the mix of job values, which is why the split between repairs and re-roofs is the number to track.
Should I be on it just for the reviews?
For a new roofing business with none of its own, that's a reasonable argument. Once you have a solid set of Google reviews, the case weakens considerably.
What about after a storm?
Expect enquiry volume up and competition up with it. If you're paying per lead, storm weeks are when the budget goes fastest and the enquiries are most contested.
Want to see if the maths works for you?
Send us the split between repairs and larger jobs you win through the platform. We'll work out your real cost per customer and tell you honestly whether it's earning its place.